What Makes a Crowd?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 100, 23 May 1941, Page 5

What Makes a Crowd?

CROWD is first of all not just any group of people, but it is a group of people who have something in common, a grievance, a common suffering, or a common love of something. This common factor is necessary in order to bind the individuals together; to make them feel the link between them. selves and the next man whom they probably do not know, whom they would possibly dislike if they met in the ordinary course of social life, The second necessity of a crowd is a leader who epitomises the common factor, and represents the ideal of the crowd on that particular point, It is impossible to get a group of individuals to act together in the way that a crowd does, unless they have these two factors present, If, for example, you had a meeting of one representative of every religion, they would be quite incapable of acting in any way together, because of the differences of ideas and opinions and their mutual antagonisms. Unless, of course, they were convinced that all their religions were in danger, when the common factor of religion might be sufficient to weld them into a unity for the common purpose of defending religion against its aggressors. To-day, it is not necessary that a crowd should be gathered together physically. The radio and the newspapers can be used so that even persons a considerable distance removed from the physical crowd can be made part of it. Nazi Germany is a classic example of this. There the radio and the press, particularly the radio, have been used to bridge the physical distance between persons and make them feel and act as if they were in the actual physical crowd. Nazi Germany is a crowd of this nature. The aim of every person or *group who want a crowd to do anything is to bring to the front the common factor whether it be love, suffering or grievance.-(Winter Course Talk: "The Psychology of the Crowd," by G. Hunter Boys, University of Otago, 4YA, April 29).